Temple Boys (7 page)

“Did he smile a lot?”

“All the time.”

“Can you get us out of here?” Jude's voice was suddenly urgent.

“Yes, I know this area.”

“Then do it—and lose that thing you stole, whatever it is.”

Flea nodded and was off. He knew many escape routes out of the market. The one he chose took them between a soap seller and a spice warehouse into a gap so narrow even he had to squeeze sideways. Then there was a wall to climb and a view down into a tiny roofless room where dull-eyed children picked through sacks of dried lentils and didn't look up.

Flea led Jude across the rooftops, crossing streets where the houses came close enough together to jump the gap and on until the streets widened and the houses were built out from the hillside. They stepped from a roof straight onto a small strip of carefully terraced garden.

Jude checked the sun. “All right,” he said. “This is far enough. Now then, Flea. You and I need to talk.”

 

15

In the narrow garden
was a pomegranate tree that had been pruned so thin that twigs spread like fingers from the thicker arms. Dark rows of earth, freckled with ash, were turned and ready for seeding. But it was cold on the rooftops. Flea hugged himself and wondered where spring was.

“Did you get rid of that thing you stole?” Jude asked.

“Chucked it down a chimney,” Flea lied.

“Good. Here's the money I owe you.”

Flea didn't look at it. “Don't you think I deserve a bonus?”

Now that his time with Jude was coming to an end, he was ambushed by sadness. It had been good to feel useful. It had been better to feel needed. What did the rest of the day hold in store for him? Nothing. He had been thrown out of the Temple Boys. He was alone again.

Jude snorted. “For doing what we agreed? In your dreams.”

“For keeping my mouth shut. That's what you really want, isn't it?”

“About what, in heaven's name?”

“About the man who was following you. About the way you went to every donkey man and camel handler in the city until you found the one that blocked the bridge yesterday. About paying him to tell you something.”

“You…” Jude grabbed Flea by the wrist and pushed him back against the tree, thrusting his face in close. Flea could see every hair of his beard, the spit threaded between his lips, the red starburst of the scar on his cheek. “Do you honestly think that if I strangled you here and now anyone would care? Perhaps that's why I hired you, because I could use you and then throw you away when I was done.”

Fear stuck Flea with a splinter of cold. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I take it back. I'll leave you alone.”

Jude gave a cold laugh and dropped him. “On the other hand, I chose you because I thought you were clever … and I was right.” Flea looked away over the flat rooftops, eyes narrowed and a muscle pulsing at the back of his jaw. He massaged his wrist and waited for as long as he could manage. “So?” he asked.

“All right. I won't pay you a bonus but I will pay you for more work. Lucky that you're working for me—Yesh would just say there are riches waiting for you in heaven. Ground rules first. One: Fleas should learn not to bite the hand that feeds them. Two: Fleas shouldn't bite off more than they can chew. Three: Clever fleas jump away from trouble, not into it. Got that?”

Flea protested. “I can't help seeing what I saw. It's far better you explain so I don't get it all wrong. Please.”

“Please. He actually said ‘please.' That's more like it.” Jude chewed his inside cheek. “Well, if I tell you just enough to keep you out of danger, it might help. I think the man following us was Roman. He's not … he's not a man you want to be interested in you.”

“Who is he then?”

“If he's the man I think, his name crawled away and died of shame a long time ago. He's got the governor's ear, the Roman prefect himself—and he's ambitious. It doesn't help that the governor's more or less given up governing, so he'll listen to anyone with a strong opinion. And this man has a simple idea: If people don't do what you want, hurt them until they do.”

“So he's powerful?”

“He's effective. Like a knife. Some people say he was once one of us. Some people say he was Idumaean, like Herod the Great. Or a Samaritan. Or a … Well, it doesn't matter because he's a Roman now, and that, my friend, is the power of Rome. Anyone who thinks like a Roman, is a Roman. But I don't understand why he was following me. And that's a worry.”

“Maybe he made a mistake,” said Flea.

“He doesn't make mistakes.”

“So maybe it was something to do with the donkey and the camel blocking the bridge.”

“I told you to forget that.” Jude looked away.

But Flea knew he was onto something. “I can't. You can twist my arm all you like but you can't make it go away. It doesn't make sense. I'll just think and think about it and probably think wrong. There was a traffic jam on the bridge. It was caused by a camel and a donkey. The magician sorted it out, then rode the donkey into the city and everyone went mad. Then you found the owner of the donkey, and the camel was there too. You gave him money…”

“Flea! Back off!”

“Saying ‘back off' doesn't work with me. You told me to follow you, so I followed you. If you'd said, ‘Watch out for anyone who's interested in me but keep away from them,' I'd have been more careful.”

Jude rolled his eyes upward. “I didn't know he was following me,” he said between gritted teeth.

“Exactly. You can't possibly know everything that's going to happen, so you might as well tell me everything.”

Jude raised his arms and looked at the sky. “What sort of creature have I hired? All right. All right. But if I'm going to hire you again, it will be for your low cunning and sneakiness, not for your endless questions. Is that clear?”

“You're hiring me?” Flea felt a smile creep across his face.

“One more day.”

Flea had to stop himself from punching the air. He folded his arms and leaned back against the terrace wall like this sort of thing happened all the time, like he was taking it all in stride. “So, you were about to tell me about the old man, the camel, and the donkey.”

“It was part of a plan,” Jude said, after thinking for a moment. “It was part of a plan cooked up by Yesh and all the other followers. The trouble is, they didn't tell me. That's why I needed to find out about it.”

“Let me get this right,” Flea said slowly. “The others, Yeshua and the others, wanted there to be a big snarl-up on the bridge.”

“Correct.”

“And they wanted Yesh to sort it out?”

“They wanted to be certain there would be a crowd and, above all, they wanted a donkey.”

“But there are donkeys everywhere.”

“There had to be a donkey on the bridge and obviously it had to be the right donkey, so the donkey owner didn't make a fuss. It was all set up. Remember the guy with the water pitcher? I think he was probably the signal that it was all arranged. It meant everything was in place: the camel, the donkey—everything.”

Flea felt dizzy. It was like peering into a pool of water. You saw the surface, but then, suddenly, you could see below the surface, farther and farther down.

“But why?” he said.

“That's a very short question that has a very long answer. Do you really want to know? Good, so sit down and listen, because I'm going to tell you a story.”

Jude settled down with his back against the pomegranate tree and Flea sat next to him. After a quick look around the little garden to make sure they were alone, Jude began.

“A long time ago when the world was young, me and Yesh used to travel around the villages of Gilgal doing tricks. Doesn't sound like much, but it was a living and the best time of my life. Sometimes he did the patter and I did the magic, and sometimes it was the other way around, but people paid us wherever we went—maybe with coins if we were in a town, maybe with a meal and a place to bed down if we were in a village. Sometimes we'd wind up in a huddle of huts in the middle of nowhere—howling desert all around and wild dogs and lions. You couldn't imagine how anyone scratched a living from the rock and sand, but there'd always be a bite or two to eat and a pile of hay to sleep on and the stars up above in the desert sky if you wanted something to look at. We were … I was … happy. I knew it wouldn't last. Yesh's father was a carpenter, but Yesh was never going to settle down to that. I just thought if I could keep him moving, keep him living on his wits, he might forget…”

“What?”

“His difference. Yes, that's the word. I thought he might be busy enough to forget his difference. And then things changed. It all happened so slowly I didn't even notice, and by the time I did, it was too late.”

Jude looked at Flea.

“Something you need to know about Yesh. He could have been anything he wanted, except he didn't want to be anything you or I could dream of. That's part of his difference. He's a one-off. An original. When he started doing a new sort of trick and people began to think it was real magic, he didn't exactly argue with them—and that made things dangerous. Every village has a priest, and while they might turn a blind eye to conjuring, real magic is witchcraft and you can be stoned for that. I tried to warn him, get him back to what we were doing before, but he said he was on the verge of something really important. He thought a change was coming to the world, and people—his people—should be ready for it.

“Soon he was pulling in the big crowds, really big crowds, and he picked up more people, which turned into an inner circle of followers. You saw them with him yesterday. We all got along at first, but then one evening, when we were sitting around the fire, I suddenly realized that instead of everyone talking and sticking it to each other, they were all just listening to him.

“Next thing, when we came back to places we'd already been, there were people waiting for us, and I found out all kinds of stuff I somehow hadn't noticed before. He'd turned the water into wine, breathed on a dead sparrow and brought it back to life, cured people of leprosy and blindness. For a while we were followed around by an old pig man who swore Yesh had pulled little demons out of his throat and given them to his pigs to eat. Another person swore he'd fed a whole crowd with a handful of fish and a couple of loaves of bread—that's the sort of audience he was pulling in …

“Truth was, he always thought his talk was more important than the magic. He found a way of getting through to people better than the priests ever could. He talked about a world where everything was turned upside down—good for the poor, hard for rich, where you could make yourself pure just by doing good things.”

Jude paused, and when he started talking again he wore the expression of someone taking bad medicine. “Then last year he ran into this Ranting Dunker called Yohanan, blast his miserable guts. This Yohanan, a grizzled old hermit, lived on the edge of the desert and had a following himself, but he said he was nothing compared to Yesh. He said Yesh wasn't just the best conjuror in the world, nor even the best healer. No, he said he was the Chosen One himself, and Yesh's other followers—the ones he'd picked up along the way—didn't laugh it off, they believed him. They started calling my old friend Master, which was annoying enough, then Lord. And now, to cap it all, suddenly I realize they're planning something big, here, in the city, on the busiest day of the whole year, and I don't know what it is. You with me, Flea?”

“I think so—and it all had to start with Yesh sitting on a donkey?”

“That's it. The man with the pitcher of water was a sign to Yesh; when he got on that donkey it was a sign to the people.”

“But what's the problem? Why not just go along with it?”

Jude gave a wry smile. “Coming from you, young Flea, that's a bit rich. When have you just gone along with anything? I'm frightened. I'm frightened of how it all might end. Yesh is walking into danger and your gang will go down with him if they're not careful. We need to find out what it is they're up to, and then we stop it. You and me.”

“One small problem. I was just chucked out of the gang, and they never listened to me when I was in it. No way I can stop anything.”

“But you want to get back in?”

“Of course I want to get back in. They're my gang.”

Jude narrowed his eyes. “Maybe we can use the situation. Maybe you could save them.”

“But I can't save them unless I'm part of them, can I?”

“True. But there is a way.”

“What?”

“Whatever else I say about Yesh, he is a good man. The best. Let him talk to you. He can't bear it when people reject him. He can't understand why, and it gets to him like an itch he's got to scratch. You can use that.”

“What? Join his movement?”

“Nothing like that. Just be yourself, but give him a chance.”

“And then what?”

“Yesh will like you. If your gang sees that he's on your side, chances are they'll take you back.”

Flea nodded. “Just so long as I only have to pretend to like him.”

“Just think of it as your mission. Now from what I can gather, Yesh is down by the Healing Pool today, so that's where we're going now. All right?”

Flea was on the point of agreeing when something struck him. “You told me that when the crowd saw Yeshua riding on a donkey it was a signal,” he said. “What signal?”

Jude's face took on an odd twist. “Perhaps ‘signal' isn't quite the right word. It's a prophecy.” And Jude began to chant. “Be full of joy, O people of Zion. Call out in a loud voice, O people of Jerusalem. Look: the king is coming. He is just and he is good and he has power, but he is not proud, for he is sitting on a donkey.”